Tuesday, July 22, 2008

drinking a cup of tea cont...

change the world with my favor. God is good.

Drinking a cup of tea

Today was my second day of school, and as usual I came home stressing, worrying and complaining. I completely forgot where I was and what I am doing and just bummed around the house too groggy to do any of the homework that was making me feel so bummed. Now, a few hours later I just sat at my desk with a cup of tea to begin some of my reading. I made myself a cup of rooibos and honeybush tea. I put a smidge of honey and just a tiny bit of sugar in. The first sip melted away all of my anxiety. Mmhh. It tastes so fresh. I am in Africa! The most beautiful continent in the world. Why would I waste any of my time huffing and puffing. Yes, my course load is very heavy. But thats great. Im studying theatre, the thing I love, at one of the best schools in the world! And.... the killer is I DONT HAVE TO WORK! I havent had to work a job since the day I got here and im surviving! As I sit here over my tea I am just so thankful for being accepted into this great drama department that no study abroad student has EVER been accepted into at this amazing school, thankful for my talents that God has so graciously blessed me with, thankful for my extremely comfortable living situaition, thankful for the gorgeous lanscape I see everyday, thankful for all the amazing friends I've made already, EXTREMELY thankful for the finances I was blessed with so that I can not only come here but live here for 5 months and not work, and thankful for all the people that love me back at home. I am an extremely fortunate person and determined to

Friday, July 18, 2008

for mommy lol

Hello everyone!

It makes me so happy that people actually read my blog! I know there is a way to send out e-mail notifications when I post new things but I have yet to figure that out. anyway....
The past few days have been really good! The thing I am most excited about is school. My school, University of Cape Town, is ranked number 200 for best Universities in the world!! (Harvard's number one of course) But it is gigantic. We have FOUR CAMPUSES! Lower campus, middle campus, upper campus, and hiddign campus. There are people from all over the world that go there. There are obviously a lot of South Africans. But I've also met so many Zimbabwains, Namibians, Botwanians, Kenyans, Egyptians, and much more. Its a big international school so there also lots of people from Europe, Asia, and all those places. Walking through campus you hear so many different languages its so cool. Also, the most common language besides english that you hear is Xhosa which is known to Americans and "the click language". Im taking a class to learn to speak it once school starts, which is on Monday! I cant believe it! But walking through campus is like walking in a completely different world. Everything is so different than what Im used to, especially the enviornment. I usually take what I see when I walk down the streets for granted in the States, but here that is absolutly imposible. If you stand on the wain stairs of upper campus and look down you see all of cape town, the mountains and the ocean. It is such an amazing feeling. There are some places here (like on those steps, or out near the ocean, or on the slopes of the mountain i live on) where you look out and and its so beautiful that it brings tears to your eyes. You just feel so close to God, and I just start to feel so fortunate. Speaking of fortunate I went out to one of the townships I will be volunteering in yesterday. Im not going to spell this right, but its called "Khayletshi". Its the largest black township in the western cape. It was a very humbling experience. The houses are made of garbage and plastic and tires and whatever other mateial the people can find. There is no running water or indoor bathooms. These people live in conditions we could never survive in, but when the kids saw the bus coming they ran and chased after us with huge smiles on their faces. When we got out they just wanted to touch us. They wanted so badly to just touch an american. Being there with those children for the first time is definately something I will never forget. I will be tutoring children there twice a week starting in 2 weeks.
Just so everyone knows........ the next time you see me i will have:

1. ridden an ostrich
2. cage dove with great white sharks
3. bungee jumped from the highest bungee jumping point in the world
and
4. Hiked Devils Peak

Mom,
Dont worry I will be fine :)

Im facing a lot of fears while i'm here. I've already grown and changed so much.

Monday, July 14, 2008

1st entry

For those of you who don't know, I made it here safely. I am currently in Cape Town, South Africa! The most BEAUTIFUL place in the world. I live right off of table mountain. Right out my back door is gorgeous mountains and open land spread with beautiful trees and other plants. The sky is bluer and clearer than you can ever imaine. I live near like 20 million thousand beaches. The water is perfectly clear blue. Its whale season. I've seen two!! Its winter here which means around the 50s at night and 60s during the day. There really is just no way I can explain how amazing this place is. I thought I'd be living in dorms, but I dont. I live in a suburb called Mowbray. I live in a nice little house with 6 other people. There are six girls and only one boy lol. We each get our own room which is sweeeeet! I cool cus its like a little sorority house. Our kitchen has two fridges and two stoves. We have two bathrooms..... so its a very comfortable living, and all my roomates are really cool.

The first day I got here we went on a bus tour of Cape Town. I got to see it in all its splendour for the first time. Its ssssssssooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo different from the last time I was here. The world cup is here in 2010, so they are really building the place up and making it look nice. It's very urbanized. However, there is still a very disinct difference between the city and its suburbs and the townships. Of course they aren't doing anything to help build up the townships :/ but the tourism industry has grown immensly.



After the bus tour we went to "Africa Cafe" Its a really nice traditional African restaurant. We ate food from all over Africa: the Congo, Mozambique, South Africa, Egypt, Zimbabwe, allllll over. It was soooo good! Then after that we went to a bar in this little area called "O bz" that all the students hang in. It was fun. There were too many Americans there for me, but of course I just went to the front and mingled with the locals. Crime is such a huge problem here. it really sucks. You have to be on guard at all times. You cant go anywhere alone. You cant carry anything with value and no matter how careful you are you will definately at one point or another be mugged. Of course the guys are also very aggresive when they are drunk. They love Black American women and they are very persistant. You have to be very firm in telling them no.

The next day was Arcadia's orientation, so we sat around a table and listened to people talk for forvever. That was sooo boring. But while we were there we got to eat lunch at this really nice restaurant. The mountains and beautiful landscape surrounded us as we ate. We ate outside because the weather was nice. They specialized in calamari so I ordered calamari and rice. It was BANGIN!!! The calamari are huge! They are like four times the size here that they are in the states and absolutely delicious. They arent chewy or wierd texured. They are just... ugh! indescribable!

After orientation we went to the couple thats kinda watchin over us's house for what they call a "brie". Its sorta like a bbq. People have them a lot here. There is no bbq sauce involved, but they make food outside on the grill and some inside on the stove then everyone enjoys it together inside. Its a good time. We just came home after that . Drank some wine and hung out for a while, then went to bed.

Sorry guys this is long, but i havent gotten to write so im catching y'all up lol.
Long story short..... the next day went to the waterfront for breakfast. I got reallu upset there because of some political stuff.... its a long story, but basically governmental apartheid is over, BUT ECONOMIC APARTHEID IS ALIVE AND THRIVING!!! Tourists and a lot of white south africans still treat black south africans like dirt. They treat them as though either they dont see them or they are very inferior. It makes me so angry. I hate putting my money into these touristy places that employ black south africans to do labor for no money. Enough of that cus i could go on forever....
I met a lot of cool locals that day, so that was good.

Now for the important part: I hiked down a HUGE mountain today!!!!!!!!!! It was soo scary, but I faced my fear and I did it! It felt so good! ill post pictures! God, it was so beautiful. We were at the cape of good hope. Then we visited a secondary school in oceanview that i MUST go back to. The kids performed for us and I loved it. Now im home. SICK :(
i have a cold, so am stuck in the house. It kinda sucks.
Im also sick of writing now, so thanks for reading and I'll write more soon :)